Runners
by Stjimmy569
Summary: A Runner named Sparrow wants something new in his life, but not even he knows what. Until a girl named Faith shows up in his life... An Alternate Version of Mirror's Edge, With Many Changes, Including The Fact That Merc is Now a Chic.


It wasn't any darker than last night, but Sparrow felt as if it was a constant midnight pitch black. What was worse, his insomnia had reared itsef again, keeping him awake to stare at the dark ceiling since midnight. The clock read 3:43 a.m.

That girl...Faith was her name...How am I expected to find her? She left litterally nothing, since Runners don't use their real names, and Merc had said that no Runners by the name of Faith are or ever have been under his employment. He had nothing.

Twenty uneventful minutes later, Sparrow decided to go for a run.

A chilling wind blew across the city, amplified by Sparrow's current elevation. He lived in the tallest apartment structure in the city; the ideal choice for a Runner, although Sparrow had never seen any others around.

Standing thirty stories up, Sparrow felt his mind clear, empting of vertigo and stress and mysterious girls who save your life, only to vanish without so much as a goodbye. The harsh wind managed to find his hair through his hoodie and whip it around painfully. He pulled his jacket tighter around himself.

Looking down, Sparrow watched as a single speeding car flew by, followed closely by three police, sirens blaring. He sighed and was about to sit down and watch, when a flash of red in the dark caught his peripherals. A strong gust of wind forced him to turn his head, and was shocked to see a girl reclining next to him. Not just a girl, Faith, her single glove bright against the black of the roof. He absently noticed how close that gloved hand was to his own.

"It's rude to stare," She whispered, and Sparrow realized that was exactly what he was doing. Faith faced outward to the city, but her eyes were to the side, studying him. A smile formed on her features. "Don't tell me you don't remember who I am? Jeeze, how many girls save your life a day?"

Her voice sounded like a whisper, but Sparrow guessed that was because of the roaring wind in his ears. Finally, he found his words: "You disappeared on me."

She laughed. "I had somewhere to be."

"But you stopped to talk to me."

"At first, I thought you were the Runner I was meeting. When you told me your name was Sparrow, I realized you weren't, and was gonna get out of there. But you were just so cute...I guess I was starved for a social life."

Sparrow was silent as he thought about this. It was true, once you were a Runner, you didn't have much of a social life. Since the police are always looking for an excuse to arrest them, and most of them don't even try to hide the red they wear, most people make it a habit to avoid them. Sparrow himself hadn't talked to anyone besides Merc in over a month, aside from the ocasional 'hello' of the Runners he makes a drop to. Any more of a conversation between two Runners on a mission usually results with a bullet in the back.

Snapping out of his own mind, Sparrow noticed that Faith was starring at him again. He also noticed the sound of a distant helicopter, no doubt a news chopper, following that high speed chase he had witnessed earlier.

"Um, sorry," Sparrow said, almost blushing.

"Don't worry about it," Faith replied through a smile, "It's late, and minds tend to wander at this elevation. I've never seen a Runner affected by alltitude, though." She winked, and this time Sparrow did blush.

"You don't work for Merc?" Sparrow rushed, desperate to change the subject. Her smile faded. He was about to appologize, but Faith cut him off.

"No. I work for...someone else."

"And who's that?"

It looked like Faith was about to answer, when her head shot up, suddenly focused on the sky. Sparrow wondered why, until he noticd that the distant roar of a helicopter wasn't so distant anymore. He followed Faith's gaze up and saw a hunter chopper rapidly approaching, swerving slightly due to the harsh wind.

"Shit!" Faith jumped to her feet, grabbing her yellow messanger back and securing it around her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here," She ran to the oppisite edge of the roof, "I would run if I were you!" She called as she hopped to the adjacent building, sliding under a vent and out of sight.

Sparrow had no chance to wonder what had just happened: the chopper was rapidly approaching, increasing the wind ten-fold and blowing his hood off. He turned and booked it to the left, his practiced escape route if anyone found out where he lived. Someone knew now. The sound of heavy machine guns locking in place echoed in his ears as he spun and dropped onto the emergancy fire escape, immediatley vaulting off and landing on the neighboring roof.

The helicopter sped after him, and the tell-tale sound of mini-guns warming up sent a chill up his spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. Sparrow was fast, but he knew that there was no way he could out run that hunter. The roar of the wind, the freezing ground beneath his bare feet, the cold metal blades of the chopper ripping through the air, all of this seemed unreal as he prepared himself for the inevitable assult of auto-fire.

An incredibly strong blast of wind almost sent Sparrow off his feet, just as the hunter's mini-guns fired. The chopper was blown sideways, and the ground exploded where Sparrow had been a second before. He had avoided death for now, but the helicopter was leveling out, and preparing for another pass on the lone Runner.

There was no way to escape, he was to high up to drop, and it was impossible to hide from that chopper on the rooftops. Nature intervening again was to much to hope for; he was doomed.

While Sparrow was in his own head, slowly realizing his attempts at escape were futile, he didn't notice that the sound of the spinning blades was dissapating. He stopped, and frantically looked around for any sign of movement. Off in the distance, he spotted the hunter retreating into the city. But why?

Whatever the reason, Sparrow only knew one thing. He deffinatley needed a new place to stay.


End file.
